Here are some variants of the main UI screen for my Surrealist city design app. I selected four of the best thumbnails that I had sketched previously. At this stage it was especially important to know the exact number of buttons and links that are required by the UI, because this affects the graphic design.

In my old prototype the buildings used to be organized according to economy sectors, but this didn’t make much sense because the app is not a simulated economy. It’s a casual city design sandbox. Therefore, I changed this according to psychological effect. The building are now organized into “Dreams, Fears and Follies”. Dreams are positive emotions, Fears are negatives, and Follies are paradoxical things. Each building in the city is a personification of one of these categories. I feel this is better because it emphasises the Surrealist influence.

The first alternative below is my personal favourite. It has a bit of Salvador Dalí in it, this connects thematically to Surrealism, and the layout is simple and clear. The next two have some thin lines and jazzed up rectangles influenced by Kadinsky. The last one places the buttons in “diegetic perspective”, that is to say, the UI is in same perspective as the city grid; I got this idea from the classic game Populous.

In the last variant the content area is surrounded by a large circle, this will work better if it is a diamond shape.